10:30 AM,
Jan. 15, 2014

A woman hugs a student at a staging ground set up at the Roswell Mall following a shooting at Berrendo Middle School, Tuesday in Roswell, N.M.

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USA TODAY

Ten seconds of horror and one heroic teacher turned a normal New Mexico morning into one that will never be forgotten at a Roswell middle school that boasts of winning the girls city basketball championship and just days earlier issued its midyear report cards.

Police say a 12-year-old student walked into the gym shortly before school was to start and began firing a sawed-off shotgun. Two students were wounded, one critically.

Authorities say John Masterson, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Berrendo Middle School, saved lives when he immediately stepped in and talked the boy into ...